


One < Many

by Siavahda



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Moral Dilemmas, POV First Person, Past Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 00:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11840598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: I said some life is like a virus. But if you kill a virus, you’re a doctor. If you kill a person…But that’s insane, I realise. By that logic, Everett Adams—the sniper who fought for his country and whose second-hand skills are how I know how to use this gun at all—is as bad as Blaine. Am I really going to insist that soldiers stopping terrorists are as morally repugnant as a serial-killer who murders teenagers for profit?Is there really a part of me trying to argue that stopping a serial-killer makes me as bad as the person who killed Jerome?One is less than many.Or, the one where Liv pulled the trigger.





	One < Many

**Author's Note:**

> So the hubby and I got into iZombie, and I unabashedly loved it...right up until the Major Character Death near the end of season one. At which point we both burst into tears. I'm honestly not sure I can continue watching the show. The writing and acting is amazing, but I'm just so heartbroken.
> 
> This is a quick one-shot - although I am considering sequels - rewriting the ending of the Episode That Shall Not Be Named; aka, what _should_ have happened. Because fuck the canon _so hard_.

I said some life is like a virus. But if you kill a virus, you’re a doctor. If you kill a person…

But that’s insane, I realise. By that logic, Everett Adams—the sniper who fought for his country and whose second-hand skills are how I know how to use this gun at all—is as bad as Blaine. Am I really going to insist that soldiers stopping terrorists are as morally repugnant as a serial-killer who murders teenagers for profit?

Is there really a part of me trying to argue that stopping a serial-killer makes me as bad as the person who killed Jerome?

_One is less than many._

No. It’s not the same. I wish violence wasn’t the answer—so does every civilised person. But there’s no other way. Blaine isn’t going to just stop, and what can the law do? Blaine has people in the Seattle PD— _someone_ moved those bodies, _someone’s_ been hushing up all the missing kids and blocking any real investigation into their disappearances—and even if we found someone in the department who believed us, someone powerful enough to overcome the roadblocks placed by Blaine’s insider/s, what then? Send Special Forces after Blaine in hazmat suits, so he can’t infect anyone? Out zombies to the world by putting him in front of a judge? And if the whole thing isn’t thrown out for insanity, how do you put a zombie in amongst a prison population without starting World War Z?

There isn’t another option. I saw Jerome’s death, and now I know over sixty other people have died the same way—terrified and in agony. If I don’t pull the trigger, more people will die like that. Blaine will take Black kids and homeless men and the women who push around shopping carts full of junk—all the people nobody cares about and nobody looks for. The dead will never get justice, and the ones he murders tomorrow—their blood will be on my hands, too. I might not be the one to turn them into gourmet dishes for the rich and undead, but I’ll have let it happen. Don’t I bear some responsibility, if I can stop a bad thing from happening, and don’t?

I’m a doctor. I swore not to hurt people. But sometimes even a doctor is forced to choose between a lesser harm and a greater one. In the 80s, the medical community—and the government—turned their backs on the men dying of AIDS, and they might not have been firing bullets, but their inaction hurt people. It _killed_ people. And that inaction was a choice. They chose to let those people die.

If I leave Blaine alive—unalive—then I’m choosing to let the people he’ll murder die. I might not be as culpable as Blaine himself—but I’ll be more culpable than I can live with.

The Hippocratic Oath says, _I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure_. I can’t cure death. But I can prevent the disease that is Blaine from killing any more people.

Lowell turns away to duck back inside his apartment. I don’t know if he’s looking for something to distract Blaine with or if he wants a moment to text me what’s wrong, but he’s given me a clear shot. There’s no chance of my hitting him now, no need to fear that he might unknowingly step into the path of my bullet at just the wrong moment.

It’s just me and Blaine.

Which is probably exactly what Lowell intended.

I have my eye to my scope. I adjust the angle just a little, just enough to pin the back of Blaine’s head in my cross-hairs. He’s holding a glass of something; I think he might be humming. Enjoying himself, here in the company of a man he forcefully turned into a zombie and blackmailed into eating the brains of murdered children.

I think of Major filing missing persons report after missing persons report.

I think of Jerome’s final moments, the swing of Blaine’s arm as he brought down the crowbar.

I think of Lowell’s face when he handed me the grave-robbed brain.

And I pull the trigger.


End file.
